James J Sosnoski

Understanding Persons Unlike Us James J Sosnoski

Understanding Persons Unlike Us is the second volume of The Wisdom of Seeking Wisdom series. It concerns the process of understanding persons who are different than us. If we believe another person is like us, we also tend to believe they behave as we do, which usually governs the way we interact with them. The perception that someone is like or unlike you governs a wide range of our conduct. We tend to feel comfortable with persons like us and uncomfortable with those unlike us. We are drawn to the former and avoid the latter. These perceptions permeate our lives and guide our conduct. To understand persons like us, we usually focus on their positive attributes. On the other hand, we tend to deal with persons unlike us by avoiding them. As a result, we rarely have direct experiences of interacting with them. Instead, we rely on stereotypes, the ways the media represents them. UPUU focuses on the differences between two mental processes: configuring (understanding persons like us) and re-configuring (understanding persons unlike us).